Thursday's Coup d'Etat

For those of you who haven't heard, yesterday, March 22, there was a military coup here in Mali. According to most sources, the military entered the presidential palace that morning and captured the President, although some people say that he was able to escape. The leaders of the new military regime claim that their goals are to restore democracy as quickly as possible. We'll see how true these claims turn out to be. It seems strange to conduct a coup less than a month before elections if the true goal is to promote democracy, but then there's also the fact elections in Mali have a history of being less than free and fair and most people have no reason to believe that the elections scheduled for April would have been any different. Mali does have a history of nonviolent military coups, such as the 1968 capture of Modibo Keita and another in 1991. After the coup in '91 a transitional committee, similar at least in rhetoric to the one in place at the moment, maintained order for a year until elections could be organized. These elections were held, although it's unclear, according to most Malians who are politically informed, how fair and democratic they actually were. The recent president, Amadou Traore (ATT), has become controversial over the last few years given the conflict with the Tuareg in the North, which I wrote about earlier. It's believed by many that ATT was secretly collaborating with the rebels in the North, a sentiment that is furthered by a widespread but unconfirmed rumor that a cell phone one of the Tuareg military leaders had on his person when he was captured received a direct call from the President himself, which was then answered by a member of the Malian military. I don't really have any way of knowing how true or ludicrous these claims are but I do know that the vast majority of Malians were less than enthusiastic about ATT as a president. All of the Malians I have spoken to are relatively unconcerned about the coup and seem fairly confident that it will have a minimal impact on their daily lives. However, I'm writing this from Senou, a small rural village outside of Bamako, where I was when I found out about the coup. It's possible that opinions in Bamako will be quite different. I hope to talk to people in Bamako tomorrow to find out more about their opinions. I'm not sure how much coverage the coup is receiving in the American media or what exactly is being said but for anyone who's worried I can assure you that for the moment there is very little violence, I'm very safe here and our program director says that, unless the situation changes, it's unlikely that we will have to leave the country, especially since the military has temporarily closed all borders. At least for now it seems that life will continue more or less as usual here, although there is a curfew being imposed and we will probably have less freedom to go out at night. People are being told not to leave their houses until Tuesday, after which there will only be a nighttime curfew. I'll try to write more often to keep everyone updated but I really do want to emphasize that no matter what they're saying in the American media the situation here is not at all dangerous and hopefully will remain so.

Cultural Challenges

Last week we visited Sikasso, Teriaybugu, and Segou to end our grand excursion. I found most of the places we visited in these cities to be a lot more interesting than the damn we saw in Selingue. In Sikasso we visited two waterfalls, which were really beautiful. It was also just exciting to be around so much green. We walked along the river and saw so many plants and fields that are able to grow thanks to all the water nearby.

Before leaving for the grand excursion, our professor reminded us to make sure to either bring our passports or enough money to pay bribes at every checkpoint. In Mali the police are generally very corrupt and will stop people to get bribes, whether or not they have done something wrong. We saw this for ourselves when a girl on our program took a picture of a field from the window of our bus. A policeman saw her take the photo and immediately asked us to pull over. He came up to the window and began a heated discussion with the academic director. He told the director that he thought a student had taken his picture and that it was forbidden to take pictures of the police, so the academic director had her pass her camera up to show the policeman that she had only taken a picture of the landscape; there wasn't a single person in her photo. However, this fact didn't settle the issue. The policeman then began to ask how the academic director would know if students were taking pictures of things that they weren't allowed to take pictures of and just to yell and make a scene in general. It was clear that he was waiting to be slipped a few thousand Francs ($4-$6 USD) before he would allow us to leave. But our academic director tries to avoid paying bribes on principle, so we stayed parked by the side of the road where they argued for about 20 minutes until the policeman finally gave up and let us go since no one had actually done anything wrong.

One of my favorite places we visited was a very famous building in Segou that was built out of mud. The architecture in Segou is really beautiful and very different from the South of the country. I loved seeing the interesting styles of architecture. But, at the end of the excursion, I was very happy to be back in Bamako with my family.

Living with the Cisse family, I've learned a lot about Malian styles of communication. Before I came to Mali, since I'd traveled a lot before, I figured I wouldn't have many problems with culture shock. I knew that people here would have different beliefs and customs that I'm used to in the U.S., but I looked forward to getting to know Malians and learn more about their lives here. But, apart from the food (which I have to admit is not my favorite), I think cultural issues have been the biggest challenge for me during my time here, specifically in getting used to the different way people communicate with each other. Being in Mali has made me aware of certain American social norms that I took for granted before living with my family here. For example, Malians and Americans both are very sensitive to what is polite and what is not. But things that to me as an American come off as extremely rude are not seen as impolite at all. Conversely, I often (especially when I first arrived) do things that I am unaware are actually really offensive. To give a brief example, talking about age in Mali is not taboo. It's fine to ask anyone how old they are. The elderly are extremely respected here and if you ask an older person to tell you their age, they're likely to be very proud of having lived so long. However, to ask a married couple how they met is considered extremely inappropriate and rude. The Malians I have asked about this taboo haven't really given a concrete explanation for why it is so rude and offensive to ask how they met, it's just seen as very intrusive and impolite. In Mali, when two people meet in order to be polite you must go through a series of greetings, inquiring about one's health, family members, etc. One of the greetings that people use, especially in the morning is "Here sira wa?/Did you pass the night in peace." We learned this greeting on our first day of Bambara class, however, we didn't learn until several weeks later that you can only use this greeting with those who are younger than you (i.e. our professor or homestay parents can ask us how we passed the night but to pose the same question to them is a grave faux-pas). Apparently, when you use this greeting with someone older than you, you are not merely inquiring as to how they slept, but are actually asking if they had sex or not. Obviously when we make mistakes, most people realize that it's because we don't know any better and we don't intend to be rude. These aren't the cultural issues that I find really challenging. What's hard for me is my expectation, as an American, to be asked, rather than told what I want to do. As Americans, I've realized, we place a lot of value on our freedom to decide what we do and do not want to do. When communicating with each other and suggesting activities, it's considered respectful and important for people to ask what everyone around them would like, rather than just saying what they want to happen. However, in Mali, people don't generally have this expectation. For instance, one afternoon during my first week here, I was sitting at the living room table doing work. I'd planned to spend a few hours studying then walk to visit a friend's house and meet her family. My sister Penda came into the room an announced, "Mariam," (my Malian name), "you're going with Kadi to visit Mamito's father." I asked when, wondering if I'd have time to shower. "Right now," she told me. I asked if I could shower and she said, "No, you're going now." Because it was my first week in Mali and I didn't want to be rude, I didn't feel like I could say no, I didn't want to, that I had other plans. Also, to me, what my sister had said didn't seem like a request that I could say yes or no to, but an order to do something that it would be rude for me to refuse. After living here for a few months, I've learned that making statements about what they want or think should happen is just the way Malians make requests. In French this is usually done by using the phrase, "il faut," which translates literally to "one must." At first, when my sisters told me that "one," meaning me, "must" do something, I took it very literally and felt like they were telling me what I had to do, and I didn't have any choice in the matter. Now I realize that this is just how people talk to each other here. It's not rude when you want to ask someone to do something to tell them that they "must" do it, it's just how a different way of communicating than I'm used to as an American. And, I've finally realized, that it is also not at all rude when someone tells you that you "must" do something to just say no. To give another example, a few days ago I told my sisters I was going to buy some mangos and asked if they wanted me to bring them some. Two said yes, but my third sister Kadi, said "no, buy me peanuts." It's not that I had a problem with buying her peanuts (they cost about 40 cents a bag), it's just that I would have been very happy to buy her peanuts if she'd said "I don't feel like having a mango, could you bring me some peanuts instead?" and phrased it as a question. It seems like a really small thing writing about it and will probably be difficult for people reading to understand how something so insignificant could end up being one of the most challenging parts of my stay here. But even though I recognize that she wasn't trying to be rude, and it's because of my own culturally based expectations that I get annoyed by the way she talks to me, which for her is not at all disrespectful, it's hard sometimes to remember this at the end of a long day when I am tired and feel like I'm being bossed around. It helps to talk about this with the other Americans, a lot of whom have the same frustration. It also really helps to talk about it with my Malian brother, who I've gotten to be close friends with, because he is able to explain to me the Malian perspective on things and help me understand better where people are coming from.

The other issue I've struggled with the most is being treated by many Malians, including members of my host family and the SIT program staff, as if because we are American we are somehow inherently more fragile and less capable than they are. I know that this impulse to protect us from every possible threat or danger comes from a good place, because our families and the program staff really want to have a good experience in Mali and return to the U.S. safe and healthy. Still, there are some of us, in a group of twenty-somethings who have been living on their own at college in the U.S. for several years find the program's attitude towards us incredibly frustrating and irritating. For example, during the grand excursion we visited a small village where we watched women making traditional pottery. We were walking around the compounds in the village and there was a donkey standing tied to a tree. The donkey looked like it was half asleep and I started walking over to pet its nose. One of the program staff saw me, and immediately started yelling at me to back up. "Stay away from animals, Mariam," he warned me. "They are unpredictable and they might hurt you." I told him I would be careful and kept walking, thinking it wasn't a big deal. He started yelling again and told me that I was going to get hurt. I realize that his concern comes from a good place, but in a society where as soon as children can walk they are allowed to wander around freely and explore wherever they want, I can't help but resent being treated as if I am not as able to protect myself from getting hurt as the toddlers who are allowed to crawl around, under, and even over the donkey if they can pull themselves up onto it. It's the same thing with climbing trees here. In Mali there are lots of good climbing trees, however, during our orientation our professors that we weren't allowed to climb trees because we might fall and hurt ourselves.

At my homestay the electricity and water stop working fairly regularly. We'll typically have days when the water or electricity or both stop working for several hours, several times a week. When this happens my family gets water from a well in our courtyard. The first few weeks that I was here I used the well with no problem to get my own water for washing etc. Then, one day, my aunt (my sister's stepmother) saw me walking towards the well with a bucket and realized I was going to get water. She got very upset and told me that I was forbidden to use the well because it was too dangerous and I might fall in. However, she has no problem with her six year old daughter using the well whenever she wants. I tried to reassure her that I was careful and that I was able to do it, but she wouldn't listen. She told me to find someone to get my water for me. I really disliked the idea of making someone get my own water for me when I'm perfectly capable of doing it on my own and, while it's not particularly hard, it's not a lot of fun to stand bent over by the well and draw up buckets and buckets of water. I feel bad asking my sisters or one of our maids to get my water while I just stand there watching. So I figured my aunt was just being overprotective and I went to get some water anyway. My sister saw me walking towards the well and called me over. She explained that now that my aunt hand forbidden it I could not ever go near the well or she would be very, very angry. This too, probably seems like a small thing, but I've found it really frustrating to deal with the attitude that I am less able than my six year old sister to get my own water. I talked with my brother about how annoyed I was about not being able to use the well and he tried to explain it to me. He told me, "You, Mariam, you think that when you are told not to do something it is because we don't think you are capable. But for us, we don't think about whether you are capable or not, for us, when you are our guest, we don't want you to do any work. This is part of being a good host, making sure that you are taken care of and that you have someone to get your water for you." I'm sure that an aspect of what he says is true, but I think he was mostly trying to make me feel better. My aunt sees me doing work all the time, like laundry, which takes several hours and is a lot of work, but she's never told me that I should ask the maids to do my laundry, even though they do hers. I tried to explain this to my brother and his response was to tell me that I shouldn't do my own laundry either, that I should give it to him and that he would wash it and iron it for me, which is kind of missing my whole point.

Last night my brother and I went to the Parc Cinquantaire, which was created in 2010 to celebrate Mali's 50th year of independence. The park was really beautiful, located at the base of a rocky hill, from the top of which you can see all of Bamako. We walked around the park for a while then walked a little ways up the hill to see the view. I wanted to climb up to the top, but my brother told me not to. He was afraid I would fall. It was true that in order to climb to the top you might have to scramble hand over foot over a few rocks, but it wasn't as if we would be scaling a rock wall or something. Since we're good friends and he understands how frustrated I get about being told not to do things, I spent a long time arguing with him about this, trying to convince him that it would be safe for us to go to the top. Any reasonably fit person could have hiked up to the top in a minute. But he still refused. He told me he would be very sad if I got hurt and that the whole family would cry. This would have been a reasonable explanation if I'd been asking him to do something dangerous, but the path we would have had to go up was comparable to a moderately difficult section of some of the hikes I've done in the U.S. Later I spoke with another friend about how frustrated this made me and she reminded me that even if he wanted to go up to the top, it made sense that he would be very cautious and scared because, she told me, if anything happened to me while I was with him his whole family would never forgive him. Even though we didn't get to climb to the top of the hill, I really enjoyed being at the park. As usual we spent a lot of time talking about politics and religion in Mali and the U.S., but it was nice to have a change of environment, especially since the park was so pretty.